In the last couple of weeks several of our enterprise customers have asked me how to ensure 100% availability of the license server for their critical concurrently licensed applications. The requirement has 4 main components:

1. Low implementation cost
2. Consistency across vendors
3. Reliability
4. Must be automatic

For instance, the license server is hosted in Europe while engineers in China are using licenses from it. If the license server were to fail, then the system should recover without the need for someone in Europe to wake up and fix the problem manually. For quite some time there have been 3 options. Recently a new solution has emerged from the ‘cloud’. Let’s review the former solutions and their limitations and then expand on the cloud solution.

Option 1: The first option is to build a “Triad” (three redundant servers) architecture.

Option 2: The second option is to ask the software publisher to duplicate two or more sets of licenses with the promise that only one server would be running at any point in time. The servers would then be referenced using a list on the %LM_LICENSE_FILE% environment variable.

Option 3: The third option would be to divide the number of licenses in two and have the first set of licenses on one server and the second set on another server. If one license server fails then we still have another set running on the other machine.

Limitations of these approaches

Although the triad architecture is resilient, it requires more attention from the license administrator. Under heavy network traffic, a triad can become unstable because of the heartbeat message not reaching the destination on time. In addition, triad types of licenses are often more expensive than regular licenses. Moreover, you need to buy 3 servers for this purpose. The triad is a robust solution but it does not meet the “low cost” requirement asked for by Flexera Software’s customers. It has higher maintenance and hardware costs.

The duplicated license file set solution can be used by only a few big companies that can ask software publishers to deliver these licenses for different machines. The drawback here is that only a few publishers will accept this licensing request. This solution also places a burden on the publisher back office as they now need to deliver licenses twice. It can lead to an expensive adjustment to their back office systems which will then be reflected in future license costs. Moreover, no matter how trustworthy a company is, accidents can happen and licenses could be used from the two systems at the same time. We can clearly see that this solution is costly, and will not be available from all vendors which leads to inconsistent license server implementation across vendors.

Dividing the number of licenses is the third option. However if a license server fails then you lose part of your available licenses. Moreover, some applications will need to be re-programmed as they will not be able to automatically grab licenses from the second server if the first server fails while some licenses were already checked out. This is therefore not reliable and rather application dependant which renders the solution inconsistent.

For all these reasons we needed to look for new ways to provide high availability for license servers. With the advent of cloud computing and virtualization it seemed to be a good place to start our investigation.

As noted above, we need a solution that will be easy to maintain, is not expensive, does not cause overload to the network infrastructure and is automatic.

Concurrent licensing requirements

Before we delve into the solution, let’s recall what the requirements of a concurrent (e.g. FlexNet) licensing system are. A concurrent licensing system is composed of the concurrently licensed (e.g. FlexEnabled) client applications that are requesting the license, and the license server. A FlexEnabled application is an application that has been linked with the FlexNet Publisher libraries. When the application starts or needs to run a licensed functionality it requests a license from a license server.

A license server is a set of processes (license server manager, vendor daemon) and files (license, option report and debug log files) that are there to serve and monitor license features for FlexEnabled applications. The FlexEnabled application and the license server communicate over TCP/IP. Once the application is granted a license, it is its responsibility to query the license server to make sure it is up and running. These messages are what we call a “heartbeat”.

If for any reason the communication is lost (network down or license server down) the application will try, by default, 5 times every 2 minutes to reconnect. If after that time, the server is still not available, the application will terminate. The length of time and the way the application terminates is at the discretion of the application vendor. This information needs to be provided by the application vendor so that their customers know what the grace period is before licenses are lost. To be conservative we can assume that we have at least 8 to 10 minutes before the application loses its licenses.

High availability solutions

High availability in this case means providing the ability for FlexEnabled applications to always have access to a license server. We can describe this situation by saying that the socket (PROTOCOL:PORT@HOST) connection that binds the license server to its applications needs to be recreated when lost in order to prevent applications/users from losing licenses. With that, we know that a good solution would involve providing an abstraction layer so that the license server that is bound by the socket could be anywhere on the network or recreated at will.

If we want to provide high availability we need to have the (PROTOCOL:PORT@HOST) connection abstracted away so that a FlexEnabled application that requests a feature from a machine is always likely to find a license server at the receiving end. Virtualization technology allows us to create this abstraction layer and allows us to make the cloud answer the license request from a FlexEnabled application. The cloud is conceptually represented here by using Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware vSphere virtualization technologies.

We know that Hyper-V, for example, can monitor the health of virtual machines that it controls, so the solution proposed is to use the Hyper-V’s own high availability functionality. The license server is created as a virtual machine (virtual image) that can be transferred from one physical host to another if the current hosting machine fails. This image is then always active no matter which physical host is serving it. Hyper-V is able to detect failure and transfer images as necessary. Please see a representation of this implementation in the diagram below:

By default, if a FlexEnabled application loses the connection with a license server, there must be a gap of around 8-10 minutes (as described earlier) before it loses the license and terminates. The above Hyper-V based solution has been implemented by King Abdullah University of Science to provide zero downtime for their critical license servers.

A long-time customer of Flexera Software, Siemens Energy in Frankfurt, has implemented a cloud based license server using a VMware vSphere high availability solution. The license servers have been implemented as virtual images within vSphere. The vSphere HA engine is responsible for making sure the server is always running no matter where the image was started physically. If the machine where the image is hosted becomes unavailable, the vSphere engine will start another instance of this image within seconds in another location. This is completely transparent to the application user as the socket will be broken for less than a heartbeat. See below a diagram representing how high availability has been achieved using VMware vSphere:

We can say that using either technique we have fulfilled the requirements for our customers. The price of implementation and maintenance over time is lower than that of a triad. The solution is consistent across vendors as we abstract the whole machine. The solution is reliable as it is based on strong and proven virtualization technology from the big players in the industry. If you need a high availability solution for your critical license servers, consider one of these virtualization/cloud based approaches; based on our experience, these are the best solutions for reaching 99.99% availability of your license servers.

[For more information on tracking and managing concurrently licensed applications please visit our website.]

Automotive IT ran a great article recently, Licensing hell: Companies struggle to take control and reduce costs. It underscores the daunting yet essential task of software license management. The author, Michael Vogel, hit the nail on the head when he wrote that the sizeable benefits outweigh the cost and effort that go into more effectively managing these assets—that’s absolutely right. But, it takes a commitment by the organization and requires key executive sponsorship, as in the Daimler case, to make it happen. As stated in the article: Daimler’s example shows that a company has to commit resources to the reduction of its licensing costs if it is really determined to make changes.

Most IT organizations don’t have the time or resources to manually manage their software license estates–its much too time consuming and resource intensive to do that. Not to mention that in highly dynamic IT environments and with the constant changes taking place in vendor license models, it’s nearly impossible to manage software licenses with manual processes.

But what many don’t realize is that, with the right tools, they don’t have to. Automated software asset management and license optimization solutions can provide transparency into an enterprise’s license position to help ensure they stay in compliance with their license agreements, and prevent over-purchasing of software. It is especially critical to have this automation in place as companies consider moving into more complex virtual environments and the Cloud. Experton’s findings, referenced in this article, showed that more than half of corporate decision-makers at mid-sized companies, and a third at large organizations, feel out of control with respect to software license management—meaning they’re at risk for software audits and the associated unbudgeted trueup costs.

If the enterprise doesn’t proactively make software license management a top business priority, then significant risks, and the potential for over spending, will continually loom. The goal should be continual software optimization – buy only what you need, and use what you have. Any divergence from this optimized state means software audit risks, and/or unused shelfware draining the organization’s resources.

I was recently asked to come up with a topic for discussion in a group of software asset management (SAM) practitioners, and it made me think about how software asset management is perceived.

Many organizations believe that the concept of software asset management is about attaining a state of near nirvana – recognising and accounting for each and every flavour and iteration of software installed in an IT Estate, and using such information to influence and shape the strategic decisions of a business as it seeks to grow and move forward. In actuality, software asset management must be pragmatic, especially in the early stages, so that the program can achieve some quick wins and gain credibility. As noted in a recent Gartner report, early on, SAM / ITAM programs are driven by the need for an organisation to first gain control of their IT estate, and later as the programs mature, the focus shifts to financial management and cost savings.

Also recently, an article in Computer Weekly  made the assertion that many businesses struggle to see the benefits of adopting best practices (ITIL/ISO/COBIT, etc.) and this too, is a failure of those implementing such processes, as they have failed to link the benefits of best practice to how they will help the business.

However, if we go a little deeper on this, we could easily see a scenario where the benefits of SAM best practice are pitched, accepted and a company then embarks on a blinkered drive to reach an optimised state of real-time resolution that is devoid of any engagement in the real world.

When assessing an organisation, the first task should be to establish where they are with respect to SAM best practices, and then to offer a solution which they are realistically in a position to maintain once any external consultants have departed.  This may well be an incremental improvement on where an organisation is now; as opposed to the dynamic real-time state that best practice could seek to offer.

Critical to how far up the SAM Maturity ladder an organisation wishes to go is the risk analysis conducted in any gap analysis or SAM assessment.   The ISO 27001 (Information Security) standard approach is worth noting:  All risks are plotted; and then those risks that are deemed worthy of targeting are incorporated into the Risk Treatment Plan, which then goes on to shape the Statement of Applicability (SOA).  Of equal importance, is that those risks which are not addressed by the Risk Treatment Plan are documented and held in an exception document so that the company recognises why those risks were excluded.

In general, organisations should pursue a phased approach to software asset management that sets specific milestones and deliverables, rather than shooting for the final solution in one leap. SAM best practices are a key part of the strategy, but the implementation plan (including systems, people and processes) should also include having the organisation take stock of its position in 2-3 years’ time, (independent assessment would not be a bad step here). Then they should assess whether new initiatives in regard to applying further SAM best practices would deliver even greater benefits. Finally, of equal importance when assessing the ambitions of any SAM Plan, is the willingness of a company to see the plan through.  Change can be scary, not least when the size of the change seems to grow exponentially in relation to the size of the organisation.

Although organisations may have struggled in the past with a software asset management program implementation, the alternative—doing nothing, is not an option, given the complexity of software licencing, virtual environments (private and public clouds), globally distributed organisations, etc.  Structured, attainable steps in the right direction will mitigate culture shock, and not heap unbearable expectation on the shoulders of SAM Team members.  Finally, seeking guidance from SAM industry experts during the initial program plan development and once that 2-3 year review period has arrived would be a shrewd move.  Neither the IT environment nor software licensing will stand still in that period of time, and the software asset management plan may need to be adjusted accordingly to achieve the goals in the next phase of the project.

Repackaging applications for ease of automated deployment has a long list of considerations—target (MSI, App-V, ThinApp), compatibility, security, and more. But an unwelcome side effect is the potential loss of the ability to identify the application once deployed in an enterprise. Why?

Many asset management discovery and inventory tools rely on breadcrumbs left behind during installation, including Add/Remove Program entries, WMI data, registry entries, and/or file evidence to reconcile these fingerprints into a proper list of software titles, versions and editions. The act of repackaging effectively erases, or at least scrambles many of these fingerprints. The downstream software recognition tools can become baffled.

One option is to put the repackaged application fingerprints into a local repository and map them to their respective applications. This repository then feeds the inventory tool. This is an expensive solution that must be repeated for each new package and is limited to the inventory tools that support the local fingerprint repository concept. Until recently, this has been a known problem, with no economical solution. All that has changed.

Now upstream packaging has an ally— software identification tags¹ (SWID metadata) can be generated with the upcoming release of AdminStudio 11² in Q1 2012. During the repackaging process, AdminStudio 11 will keep the original information (publisher, title, edition…) as well as, the new information, in a tag (XML) that is installed on the target device after package deployment.

This allows downstream discovery and inventory tools that support the ISO 19770-2 software tagging standard to accurately identify the repackaged applications. This is an elegant, low cost solution to a tough problem.

References:

1–ISO/IEC 19770-2
http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=53670

2—AdminStudio 11
http://www.flexerasoftware.com/products/adminstudio.htm

3—Flexera Software Press Release, October 25, 2011 http://www.flexerasoftware.com/company/newscenter/pressreleases/press-releases_13282.htm

On November 3rd Microsoft unveiled the SQL Server 2012, code named Denali, licensing models and pricing. This is not a small change from previous releases, it is a revolution. There are many changes coming in 2012 and a few of the key ones are described below. From the feature side, SQL Server 2012 promises to deliver three new capabilities. From the Microsoft web site: “Mission Critical Confidence with greater uptime, blazing-fast performance and enhanced security features for mission critical workloads; Breakthrough Insight with managed self-service data exploration and stunning interactive data visualizations capabilities; Cloud On Your Own Terms by enabling the creation and extension of solutions across on-premises and public cloud”.

SQL Server 2012 will be available in three main editions: Enterprise (EE) for mission critical applications and large scale data warehousing, Business Intelligence (BI) for premium corporate and self service BI and Standard (SE) for basic database, reporting and analytic capabilities. Developer, Express and Compaq editions will still exist. The Datacenter, Workgroup and Small Business editions will be retired. The Datacenter edition is replaced by the Enterprise one, Workgroup and Small business by Standard. The Web Edition will only be available through the Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) and will no longer be offered to enterprises.

Enterprise Edition is only licensed per core (see below)
Business Intelligence edition is licensed per server and Client Access Licenses (Server + CAL)
Standard edition is licensed both ways: Server + CAL, and per core

Microsoft is abandoning the processor license metric and moving toward a core based approach for SQL Server Standard and Enterprise editions. All cores of a physical server must be licensed with a minimum of 4 core licenses required for each physical processor in the server. On a virtual machine (VM), the same rule applies to virtual cores: all virtual cores of a VM must be licensed, with a minimum of 4 cores per VM. The Standard edition is physically limited to 16 cores; even if a device where the software is installed has more cores, this edition will limit itself to using 16. When licensing servers using the Server+CAL metric (Business Intelligence or Standard editions), each server or VM requires a server license with the appropriate CAL licenses.

Microsoft keeps adding value to the Software Assurance (SA) contract: all VMs must be individually licensed unless the Enterprise edition with SA is used. In this case, licensing all physical cores on a server will allow the deployment of an unlimited number of VMs. SA also provides license mobility, enabling licenses to be freely moved across private and public clouds. It also removes the 90 day rule: once assigned to a device, the license cannot be re-allocated to another device during the next 90 days without SA.

Transitioning from a processor based model to a core based model is not easy and Microsoft has tried to make the change as seamless as possible for its customers. All processor licenses will be exchanged for core licenses based on the current installation on each machine and a core minimum rule: 4 cores per processor for Standard and Enterprise, 8 Enterprise Edition cores for Datacenter. One caveat is previous Enterprise Editions licensed with the server+CAL model will be subject to a 20 core per server license maximum. Organizations will be required to perform a self assessment to understand how SQL Server licenses are distributed within their environment in order to move to the new licensing model.

As expected, increased pricing comes along with all of these license model changes. Microsoft will raise the CAL price by about 27%. The price of a core license will be ¼ of a processor license: purchasing licenses for processors that have less than 4 cores will be not beneficial; core licenses will cost more if processors have more than 4 cores. Microsoft justifies this price increase by the additional features available in the release. The change in the metric can be explained with the evolution of processor chip architectures: more and more cores are available per chip. There is also competitive pressure from other database market leaders such as Oracle. The licensing changes are also in sync with current datacenter trends: virtualization and server consolidation. Finally, it offers what has been missing for a very long time in the Microsoft SQL Server licensing models: simplicity.

Gartner recently published a new report on government IT — Predicts 2012: Government CIOs on a Tightrope.  The report’s authors came to some interesting, if not unsurprising findings:

Cost optimization remains top of mind for most government agencies, but there is a growing realization that what is at stake is their ability to continue operating and delivering services at the same or better levels while being asked to deliver unprecedented levels of efficiency.
The key challenge for governments will no longer be to transform to improve their services, but to be able to fulfill their statutory obligations. While technology investments could favorably impact productivity and help with sustainability, cost containment remains a top concern, forcing IT executives and their organizations to embrace more agile and evolutionary development approaches, as well as more radical sourcing options.
Government organizations will continue to adopt technology innovation, but mostly in areas where technology is inexpensive or can contribute to sustainable transformation of services and operations, supporting more radical approaches to cost containment.

The message is clear that cost containment will be a continuing dominant theme in government IT – but even more important will be cost containment strategies that deliver more capability and productivity to end users.  That is, delivering more value for less spend.

This is actually one of the primary themes around software asset management and license optimization.  How can you give more productivity to users through software, while spending less money by optimizing software procurement, reducing software audit cost and risk, and improving IT operational efficiency? The government seems to be getting the message, as reported on in an earlier blog post, when it was announced that Congressman Joe Walsh introduced an amendment to eliminate wasteful software license spend in the house version of the Department of Homeland Security authorization bill.

The bottom line that Gartner understands, and that government agencies are beginning to realize, is that there is a tremendous amount of waste currently institutionalized in the federal government’s current system (or lack thereof) in procuring and using software.  Adopting best practices from the private sector around software asset management and license optimization is a painless and efficient way to eliminate this wasteful spend – while increasing the value being delivered to government employees.

One of the largest barriers to successful software asset management is a lack of software governance. Lack of clear policies and enforcement measures can result in unwanted applications being deployed in the environment, inappropriate decisions about versions or editions leading to inefficient use of funds, and worst of all, large unknown software license compliance risks.

For example, consider an organization that allows users to purchase software independently of any formal procurement process. Typically this would be done through a company credit card. The software is then installed on the user’s machine.

There are several issues with this scenario:

Users do not have a clear view of organizational software strategy and policies. This means they often purchase products that contradict the organization’s software goals. For example, they may purchase a stand-alone version of an application when the organization is attempting to standardize on a centrally served version. This represents a dual waste of funds: the organization incurs an unnecessary cost for an undesirable software license, and the organization must furthermore fund the user’s migration to the standard environment.

The organization has no view of the original software license entitlement. Typically, the undocumented purchase first comes to light during a software inventory scan. If the organization’s software asset management team has no knowledge of the purchase, they must either work with the user to obtain the original entitlement documentation or repurchase the license. In practice, it is often impossible, on an organizational scale, to contact all users in a timely fashion and gather entitlements, so a common outcome is that the organization purchases the exact same license a second time.

Even worse than repurchasing a license for one user is purchasing a license for many users because of software proliferation. Users are oftentimes unconcerned with license compliance considerations (another area where software asset management policies, procedures and internal communication can help). Regardless of what may be contained in a EULA, users may erroneously believe that the software they purchased individually on behalf of the company is covered under some sort of site license. Of course, very little software today can be purchased under a true site license arrangement, but many users are not aware of this. In addition, there are certainly users who engage in true software piracy – not an innocent ignorance of software licensing, but rather a conscious decision to flout license terms and conditions. Regardless whether the user intends to engage in unauthorized software distribution, a single license of software purchased outside normal channels can result in the organization purchasing the software not only for the original user but also for anyone else who may have received it. One software copy can quickly become ten, or a hundred. If the vendor audits the organization, they will not be forgiving of these kinds of mistakes – they will treat the distribution as piracy, with unpleasant consequences.

So what can be done? Some organizations deny administrative privileges to users to prevent them from installing software. Unfortunately, this practice results in its own administrative headache – IT staff must be involved with every change made on a desktop, and users lose flexibility to administer properly purchased and authorized software.

A more straightforward approach is to prohibit the purchase of software outside the organization’s procurement process. A centralized process is ideal, but a process that involves a proper software asset management and procurement team will do. Purchases of software on credit cards should generally be denied.

Appropriate software purchase governance will limit the exposure of the organization to compliance risk, ensure uniform software architecture, and save the organization money!

A recent IT Business Edge blog was lamenting that the trouble with software license management is the lack of a continuous process in most organizations. Both the process and access to robust data tend to be lacking.

With concurrent licensing models, much of this robustness is built-in, and thus highly valued by enterprises. Concurrent license management tools continuously monitor and capture license usage data for the applications licensed in this manner. Enterprises need to leverage that license server and application usage data. This involves two license management views: Operational and Usage reporting. Both provide a wealth of data and each has a unique value to the enterprise. Let’s examine these further:

Operational reporting is about knowing the state of the enterprise now and over the recent history so you can answer these types of operational questions:

Check the health of the systems:
Is a license server down?
Are there denials of service (licenses are unavailable when needed by end users)?

Recent history gives you context:
Is this a consistent problem; has this been going on for a while?
Is this ‘a blip’ that happens and resolves itself quickly?

Key metrics for Operational Reporting:
Licenses in Use
License Server Loads
Excessive Use Summaries
Basic Server Health Statistics

License usage reporting is about understanding how applications are being used: are they underutilized (shelfware) or oversubscribed (denials and engineers waiting to use)? It also involves business reporting (by geography, business unit or project, for example) so you can answer procurement and license optimization questions:

Do I have the right number of licenses and the right mix of applications?
How can I plan for a better application mix and future needs?
Can I leverage usage reporting for (internal) customer chargeback?
Can I use department chargeback reports to
Improve application usage behaviors
Promote greater sharing across teams

Key metrics for Usage Reporting:

Peak usage and denials
Usage over Time
Report by Project
Product Reporting

In subsequent blogs we will cover:

How to use 5 key Operational Reporting Metrics with Concurrent License Management

How to use 5 key Usage Reporting Metrics with Concurrent License Management

In a previous blog we discussed the ‘5 Key Operational Reporting Requirements for Concurrent License Management’. Another key to continuous license compliance is understanding the historical application usage trends and needs across the enterprise. Concurrent license usage reporting is about understanding how applications are used— be it underutilized, over-subscribed (denials and engineers waiting to use the software) or business reporting (by geography, business unit or project planning). These reports have many audiences:

• Engineering Teams
• Procurement & Finance Teams
• CIO / CTO
• License Managers
• Project teams

5 Key Attributes of Optimized Usage Reporting

• Accurate data source
• Continuous flow of data coming in
• Strong database system to handle volume of data
• Strong business intelligence reporting system
• Flexible reporting options
• Reporting Views
• Feature
• Product
• Business Units
• Geography
• Project
• Reporting outputs
• XML
• Graphics
• PDF
• HTML

Reporting outcomes

• Compliance
  Internal Governance
  Audits
• Business Planning
  Procurement Negotiations
  Vendor Relations
• License Optimization
  Optimum License Sharing across groups
  What if analysis on potential license changes
•  Business operations
  Internal Chargeback
  Project Billback
  Procurement Spend Planning

Being able to take advantage of reporting at the right level for the right audience and feeding into the right process will aid your organization in gaining optimum control and ROI on your most valuable software assets.

At the Gartner IT Financial, Procurement & Asset Management Summit last month in Orlando, FL, Bill Snyder (the conference chair) shared interesting data from a recent survey of IT Asset Management (ITAM) projects. This has been followed up with the publication of a more complete research study report. It appears to be the largest study of its kind to date. Key findings included that ITAM programs were successful, but not always measured first in financial terms, and that they were becoming increasingly important. While many in the industry may have sensed this pattern, it’s great to see supporting data across so many companies.

First, a definition: Gartner defines IT Asset Management as “a framework and set of processes for strategically tracking and managing the financial, physical, licensing and contractual aspects of IT assets through their life cycle.” This definition includes the field of software asset management (SAM).

ITAM Success – ITAM programs have delivered against expectations. According to the Gartner study, the vast majority of organizations that establish ITAM programs are “satisfied or extremely satisfied with the results”. This is good news, both for those organizations reporting on their results and other organizations that are just starting out. It justifies the high percentage of companies that are expanding or beginning their ITAM programs. It begs the question, though, what were those companies expecting—what were their ITAM program objectives, and how might those expectations/objectives evolve in going to the next stage of value and maturity?

Measures of Success – The measures of success are not always cost reduction. In fact many companies just starting out do not measure on this dimension at all, but are instead seeking control over their IT assets. On an industry-wide basis, this risk avoidance and management function is just as a compelling a rationale to get started with an ITAM project. Those who did measure cost savings reported benefits of more than 5% in the first year, with 42% of respondents saving 10% or more. For those who did not measure cost savings initially, as their ITAM program matures, financial components increasingly come into play. This is consistent with the evolution we have seen in the form of a focus on software identification first, then on reclaimed, redirected, or deferred software license spend, and then on the ability to optimize license spend on an ongoing basis. See the software license optimization maturity model for more details on this progression.

Increased Importance – One indication of the importance of the ITAM programs is that ITAM information is increasingly being used to make more strategic decisions. The report states that 28% of organizations are using ITAM data to support financial management and IT strategies. Another indication of the importance of ITAM programs is that IT asset managers predominantly report to CIOs. This is a shift from the past, and highlights both the level of risk that can be mitigated through ITAM programs and the financial implications of these programs. These indicate that ITAM programs require and warrant executive-level attention.

The costs associated with IT assets and their strategic value to the enterprise, especially for software assets, is high and increasing. With the success reported to date, it’s not surprising that the focus on IT asset management and then financial optimization is also increasing.

How do these sorts of reports impact IT Asset management programs in your organization?